Tribology of a solid fluorocarbon film on magnetic recording media

We investigated a new lubricant made using ion beam assisted deposition of fluorinated monomers. The fluorocarbon film is referred to as ion beam lubricant, IBL. Typical thin film media deposition was followed by deposition of the IBL. The IBL provided an acceptable number of start/stop cycles without mechanical wear, but the stiction became too high after several hundred start/stop cycles on the data zone of laser textured media.